Swine flu vaccine available for 2,000 children in New Orleans area

Chris Granger/The Times-PicayuneA line stretches out and around the parking lot where the Greater New Orleans Immunization Network's bus, top right, was giving out free swine flu shots on Tuesday on Calhoun Street in New Orleans.

Marking one of the first walk-up swine flu vaccination opportunities for Louisiana children, the Greater New Orleans Immunization Network began this week offering area children the doses from two mobile units, with plans to continue as long as the supply lasts.

Charmaine Allesandro, executive director of the network, said her organization received 2,000 doses -- 3,000 less than it requested amid a national shortage. Previously, the organization received a supply for pregnant women but ran out within three days solely based on word of mouth.

Chris Granger/The Times-PicayuneWhat makes a shot feel better is a warm, wet kiss from mom. Avah Sampere, 3, gets a kiss on the arm from her mom, Sarah Michaels, at the Greater New Orleans Immunization Network's swine flu vaccination bus on Calhoun Street.

On Wednesday, one of the mobile units will be in the Parenting Center parking lot at 938 Calhoun St. from 9 a.m. to noon, offering solely swine flu vaccines for children between six months and 18 years of age. The second unit will offer the full array of childhood vaccinations, including swine flu, in eastern New Orleans at the Walgreens near the intersection of Lake Forest Boulevard and Bullard Avenue from 2 to 6 p.m.

Families can get the full schedule for the units at www.GNOshots4kids.com. All of the vaccinations are free, but families must bring immunization records for their children.

Dr. Frank Welch, pandemic preparedness director for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said he hopes open vaccination clinics -- including for adults -- will become more common as supplies flow more freely.

Federal and state public health authorities control distribution in cooperation with manufacturers and health care providers, who in Louisiana must register with the state to get vaccine shipments. But manufacturers are well behind their original production schedule, leaving public officials and health care providers to explain the situation to nervous citizens.

As of Monday, the feds had allocated 430,000 doses to Louisiana, but only about 35,000 people have been vaccinated, mostly at private health care providers who got the initial shipments under the state’s distribution plan. The target population for the vaccine ranges from 1.2 million to 1.6 million.

Welch stood by the decision to focus first on pediatricians’ offices, pregnant women and front-line health care workers, knowing that mass vaccination exercises would be pushed back.

The public would suffer more from the spread of the disease, he said, if the highest risk groups are not immunized first. And, Welch added, public outcry would be worse if the campaign opened with large-scale, open vaccination events that left people standing in lines as supplies ran out.

In New Orleans, the Parenting Center site will not be open on Thursday or Friday, but will re-open on Monday.

Allesandro said the network went through 120 doses on Monday afternoon in Metairie. Half way through the Tuesday afternoon session at the Parenting Center, she had given out about 100 doses.

If there are still doses left a week from Wednesday, Allesandro said the network will reassess how to distribute the limited supply.

Some pediatricians have the vaccinations available, but a lot chose not to order them, she said.

“I’m actually surprised it took as long as it did” to get our supply, she added.

New Orleans resident Sarah Michaels waited about an hour at the Parenting Center. She heard about the vaccine solely because her 3-year-old daughter had a pediatrician appointment that morning.

“I probably wouldn’t have found out about it until later otherwise,” she said.

The state plans early next week -- an exact launch has not been announced -- to publish online a list of providers with available vaccines. The information will be available at www.FightTheFluLA.com.